It seems a lifetime ago I wrote about creating a calendar table; now I've started a new series showing how to use the calendar table. In the first installment, I deal with business day problems.

A not exactly innovative post about using Temporal Tables functionality to automatically update a LastModified column.

I use a real-world example showing why you shouldn't use deprecated functionality like SQL Server Profiler.

In this tip, I talk about cases where SQL Server will interpret YYYY-MM-DD as YYYY-DD-MM, which is less than optimal.

I talk about one scenario where the system table sys.sysprocesses almost led us down the wrong path.

After seeing this question pop up on forums multiple times, I wrote a quick tip about enforcing unique constraints where order doesn't matter.

After a question on #sqlhelp, I dug into what could be making sys.partitions slow, and how they might get the required information in a more efficient way.

I explain a recent case where sp_prepare came in handy: trying to validate a plan guide's impact.

I recently came across an interesting issue with CHECKDB snapshots, as well as a bit of information missing from the documentation.

More background on ParamParser, some recent changes, and several syntax examples.

Rob Volk asks us to share our favorite analogies that help explain database-related concepts to less technical folk.

I've made the GitHub repository for ParamParser public; here is some more background behind this project.

I've started a new project to parse default values from stored procedures and functions.

If you ever use sys.sp_columns as shorthand for catalog views, please don't, and I'll tell you why.

Whether you love or fear new PC builds, it's not every day a Mac person builds a Windows PC. See the parts I chose and how much more economical this option can be.

There is a very common anti-pattern you should avoid, involving updating a row if it exists and inserting it if it doesn't. See how to avoid race conditions and deadlocks.

Altering a fixed-width column on a large table can often mean either a lot of planning or a lot of downtime, but in some scenarios there may be an easy out.

We had a case where we increased a varchar column's size, ONLINE, but it caused significant downstream effects. See why.

There are some limitations with STRING_SPLIT that could be overcome, but the cleanest solution might be to add a new function altogether.

Find out about the replacement I wrote for the undocumented, unsupported, and ill-advised system procedure, sp_MSforeachdb.

Updated in 2020 with a few new entries, this is a fairly comprehensive list of the reasons behind various 18456 error messages.

See two ways you can make the relevant data in the system_health session last longer and not get drowned out by noise.

Access the system_health file target without tedious string parsing gymnastics.

This series shows how I determine the amount of data distributed across indexes, files, filegroups, and partitions.

Dig into an intermittent stack dump involving an aggregate query against a heap with a LOB column.

Discover some undocumented or unsupported behavior you might not even realize you're relying on.

See a quick T-SQL script for determining how often Cinco de Mayo falls on Taco Tuesday.

I continue a series where I dig into how data is distributed across indexes, files, and filegroups.

I talk about a recent change where I started turning on indirect checkpoints across all user databases.

I finish up my series on replacing the default trace with views to simplify consumption and a caveat about reports in SSMS.

See the stored procedure I wrote to help me put all file, filegroup, and index information in one place.

I continue my series on replacing the default trace with a more efficient and more complete Extended Events session.

See a quick example where plan shape can cause errors that really shouldn't happen.

In this tip, see ways you can change how a function is called without having to modify all calling code at the same time.

Need to get data, log, or bak files into your container's file system? See how, with docker cp.

I start a series explaining how I evaluated the default trace and decided to replace it with a slimmer Extended Events session across all of production.

See how you can use Extended Events to find your worst performing checkpoints.

In this tip, I talk about a concerning behavior in a dynamic management function.

I continue my series on large table compression with results from row and page compression as well as a process involving scheduler manipulation.

In this tip, I show how soft deletes and a filtered index can help minimize the cost of ghost records in an Availability Group.

I continue my series on investigating compression for a 1TB table, honing in on clustered columnstore and partitioning.

I show how I tried to chase down a very unexpected issue with SQL Server metadata. Spoiler: it didn't end the way I thought it would.

Discover a simple way to keep your filtered indexes effective – even under forced parameterization.

Conventional wisdom has suggested that deletes should be batched, but in some cases this can actually take a lot longer.

See how to generate a set of scripts that will delete rows from dependent tables and show you how many rows will be deleted from each.

For this month's T-SQL Tuesday, I talk about an incident where I've changed my mind about something I was previously pretty stubborn about.

Find out how to use dynamic SQL to quickly generate metadata queries to pull attributes for all columns across a database or even a set of databases.

Forced Parameterization can be a useful setting to tune workloads, but this can work against you if you're also using filtered indexes.